


In Amore et Bellum

by missrabbitifyanasty



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst and Romance, Angst and Tragedy, Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Spoilers, Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie) Spoilers, Awkward Romance, Bucky Barnes After Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Bucky Barnes Feels, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Bucky Barnes Recovering, Bucky Barnes Remembers, Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Dark Past, Drama & Romance, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotionally Repressed, Enemies to Lovers, Eventual Romance, Eventual Smut, F/M, Falling In Love, Friends to Lovers, Hurt Bucky Barnes, Hurt Steve Rogers, Hurt/Comfort, Idiots in Love, Love, Love Triangles, Lovers to Friends, Past Lives, Past Torture, Past Violence, Post-Avengers (2012), Post-Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Protective Avengers, Protective Bucky Barnes, Repressed Memories, Romance, Slow Burn, Slow Romance, Steve Rogers Feels, Steve Rogers Needs a Hug, Steve Rogers and the 21st Century, Winter Soldier Bucky Barnes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-11
Updated: 2020-11-20
Packaged: 2021-03-09 23:07:57
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 13,852
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27504310
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/missrabbitifyanasty/pseuds/missrabbitifyanasty
Summary: While trying to escape a sordid past and live a normal life, Lexie Lockhart is thrown into a whirlwind when Nick Fury recruits her to work with S.H.I.E.L.D and The Avengers just days before Hydra's attempted upheaval. Thrown into a hornet's nest, she has to deal with past demons born again, a complex relationship with Steve ... later amplified by a complicated dynamic with Bucky.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes & Original Female Character(s), Steve Rogers/Original Female Character(s)
Comments: 9
Kudos: 4





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> (A/N: So, I know I’m already working (and blocked) on a rewrite of my Star Wars fic, I’ve been watching a shit load of Marvel movies and as per usual am back on my “I don’t know who I’m more in love with, Steve or Bucky.” Bullshit lolol. As such, I’ve decided to take another crack at an OC / Bucky fic that has straight up morphed into a slow burn love triangle deal because I love to punish myself and break my own heart by living vicariously through these things in fic form…so the product is what follows and even I don’t know how it’s going to end yet. It’s getting late, I’ve had a long day and I don’t know what else to say so I’ll just leave it with, I hope you enjoy … comments, reviews, likes are much appreciated and keep me motivated, so if you like what you see, don’t be a stranger. 
> 
> Also, I seem to need to always add this part when I do flashforwards, this chapter is obviously centered around the events of Endgame…but that’s definitely not where we’re starting. It’s a flash forward, after this we’re kicking it AAAAALLLLL the way back to Winter Soldier … so… get ready for it.)

_ Prologue: Five Years _

__

Five years. That’s how long it had been since the world was upended, since life was turned on its head. Five long years since the snap, give or take, and Thanos decimating half the world’s population; half of _all_ life on earth, human or otherwise actually … and now, there they were … together, like they hadn’t even missed a beat; like no time at all had passed.

They were gathered once again in a war room Lexie had gone out of her way to way to avoid since it had happened. Five long years and now she was sat smack dab in the middle of the war room she had never _expected_ to be called back to with what was left of her closest friends … what was left of any of her friends full stop; save for a few notable exceptions, a few missing faces that she was sure would be making an appearance soon enough. They were gathered there again, Tony, Natasha, Rhodey … and Steve who had just delivered Lexie the news she had so desperately longed to hear all this time; the news she never dreamed would come, not after everything.

They had gathered there to deliver her the news and bring her up to speed and she couldn’t even muster an upward glance at any of them. The only thing she had the mind or the strength to do was stare dead straight into a mug of peppermint tea for fear she wouldn’t be able to hold herself together; for fear she would give herself away if she so much took a deep breath … for fear she would unleash the sheer shitstorm brewing in her brain with little to no hope of getting a rein on it if she did. All she could do was stare into her slick black monogramed mug, some stupid small symbol of normalcy, that was so hot it should have been searing clean through her flesh … were she not stuck so absolutely dumb she’d momentarily forgotten what it was to feel.

They had done it. They had found a way to set everything right again.

Five long years later and all of the sudden they had a way to undo what Thanos had wreaked upon them.

Five long years and they had found a way to bring everyone back.

Five long years … and they had found a way to bring _him_ back.

Everything was about to change, and everything was about to go back to normal, whatever that actually was supposed to mean.

Now, after everything, the lives that so many people lost and so many people never even got a chance to experience were about to be returned to them. Now, after five long years of learning to adjust and make the best of things. After five long years of learning to heal and learning to let go. After five long years of settling into a new routine and a new normal and rebuilding life, in all regards, from the ground up.

Now, after everything, and now … just as Lexie was happy. Just as she was secure and comfortable and wasn’t spending every waking moment on the verge of some nervous breakdown tearing through every idea and burning out every single avenue that was open or could ever possibly be open to her as she tried to solve the disaster on her own. Now, after the nightmares had finally stopped and every fiber of her being wasn’t wholly consumed by what had happened.

Now, after everything, after five long years of recovery … when hearing Bucky’s name didn’t twist a blade deep in her chest. When the thought of him standing before her and turning to ash, when remembering the sound of his voice or the way he smelled or the way his lips felt against her flesh … when the constant absence of him didn’t make her want to shatter into just about a million and one tiny pieces that had no hope of ever being put back together again.

After everything, now was the time when this revelation was to be laid at her feet. Not when she had needed it most, but now, when she was perfectly happy … and now, when she had made a perfect complicated mess out of everything.

Now … when at the end of it all, one way or another, someone was going to get hurt.

… and it was going to break her heart to have to be the cause of it.

“You still with us, Lockhart?” Tony shot Lexie a glance across the table and whistled low in a bid to take hold of her attention. “ _Any_ of this blowing up your skirt?”

She didn’t so much as blink.

“Hey, Hotshot … c’mon … snap out of it.” He snapped his fingers and waved his hand in front of her face. “We’ve got work to do.”

… Nothing.

“Is she okay? She looks like she’s about to vomit all over my nice clean floors.”

“They’re not _your_ floors anymore, Tony.” Natasha chided him coolly and shook her head in exasperation at the oh so familiar trademark personality that always chose the worst possible time to rear its annoying head.

“Is that important? I was just asking a question. Can I not ask a question? Now she looks like she’s not even breathing. Is she breathing? Does anyone wanna check that?”

“Man, _why_ do you gotta jump headfirst full speed into obnoxious all the time. She’s breathing Tony, Jesus. Just gear down and give her a minute.” Rhodey shot his friend a sidelong glare, leaning back in his chair and folding his arms across his chest. “It’s a lot … we all know that by now.”

Some things would never change. The group dynamic when there was more than two of the team in the room at any given time was clearly at the top of the list as far as constants were concerned. It was like they had never stopped meeting this way and Lexie had forgotten just exactly how it played out every single time. Under any other circumstances it would have made her grin ear to ear; the underhanded compliments, the good-natured ribbing, the never ending back and forth. Under any other circumstances she would have been more than willing to jump right in the thick of it. Under any other circumstances it would have warmed her heart and felt as comfortable and as much like home as it ever had.

Under any other circumstances … but not in that moment.

In that moment, in that one present instance, it felt cold and hollow; familiar voices flat and empty, muffled as though sounding from a million miles away while she sat staring at the bubbles swirling around her tea bag, trapped in the prison of her own mind and waging war against the 10,000 emotions that that swirled with in her all at once.

In that moment, it was as close to Hell as Lexie figured she had ever or would ever be.

“Lex.” Steve’s voice cut through the fog and brought her focus to the forefront. He reached forward and gave her hand a warm and reassuring that jolted her back into coherence. “ _Are_ you okay?”

“Yeah. I-I’m fine … I think.” She lied through her teeth and shifted her gaze to the plume of steam swirling from her cup; following it upwards as it dissipated in the air.

It something to fix on anyway. Something to hold on to as she tried to ignore the growing tightness in her chest and the way the room felt like it was beginning to close in on her. Something to try and still herself with even if there was no point to trying to stop the proverbial runaway train that was barreling down the tracks straight for her.

“I’m fine.”

“Did you hear what I said?”

“Yeah.” Her fingers tensed against the warm ceramic, begrudgingly realizing she had to face what they were telling her, even if she didn’t want to … not yet anyway. “I’m sorry … I just … I don’t understand. Can you-“

“What Steve is saying,” Natasha cut off gently in attempt to try and make it easier on her in any small way she could; hoping she could soften things just enough to keep her from spinning out. “Tony thinks … _we_ think we found a way to undo the snap. We think it’s a real chance this time … we think this can work. We think it’s _going_ to work. We think we can bring everybody back.”

“Mm-hmm.” Lexie hummed quietly. One of her hands instinctively lifted to her chest, fingers searching through the fabric of her shirt for the dog tags that hung around her neck … Bucky’s dog tags. “That’s what … that’s what I thought you said.” She sighed and swallowed back the ever-growing lump in her throat and fought with everything she had to keep her breath steady and even. “You’re telling me now … you’re telling me like this because I’m the last to know? Right? I’m the last to her about any of this.”

“Steve thought it would probably be better to wait until we were sure …”

“Makes sense.” She chortled. “I guess.”

“Are we all done mollycoddling her? I don’t wanna say the clock is ticking, because obviously it’s not … yet. But the sooner this gets done the sooner we can get back to our dailies and forget about feeling guilty for screwing the pooch the first time. I don’t know about anyone else but _I_ , for one, am looking forward to forgetting any of this ever happened.” Tony huffed impatiently and drove the line of conversation straight back into business.

Lexie flinched a little and felt the knife turn in her gut at his rather remarkable choice of words that managed to cut her to the quick … not that he could have known. Forget any of this ever happened … a few select words that made her heart ache and her eyes well with emotion.

“We need you with us on this Lockhart. We need a solid team, no room for mistakes. We can’t half ass it. If we can’t do it perfect we can’t risk it at all …”

Try as she might, she couldn’t manage to focus on the long chain of words that poured out of Tony’s mouth. Once again the rest of the world started to fade to the background and sink into little more than echoes while she slipped back into her own mind and tried to work through it all; the torture of needing to be present and sit through it all when really she wanted to trade place with any single soul that had been snapped away rather endure what undoing it was all about to bring.

Pulling her eyes away from her mug for the first time, on her first flick upwards she was locked instantly in Steve’s stoic, all knowing stare. She was held wordlessly for what seemed nothing short of an eternity and every second was even more excruciating than the one before it. Between them, there was no need, no use for words. Everything Lexie needed to know was written all over his face and painted in the turmoil and the sadness that was clear as day behind his beautiful blue eyes and everything that Steve needed to know was mirrored by her own.

The longer they stared at each other, the longer they were locked in that sad, unspeaking bond of confusion and regret and pained acceptance, the harder it was for Lexie to hold it all together and try as she might. She dug her fingernails against the glaze of the ceramic and gave herself a swift kick and few sharp jabs mentally to pull out of it. It couldn’t end this way … this wasn’t the way she wanted it to come to a close, she couldn’t muscle through it and come out the other side intact, there was no possible way … it was going to rip her in two. Locked in that silent, sad, all knowing, pained, resigned stare, she chewed her bottom lip in hope to stop it from quivering in that horrible way from which there was no return, but it was all too late.

… there was no stopping it now.

Trapped in the war room that she had avoided for as long as she could remember, listening to Tony rattle on with half an ear. Trapped by the way Steve looked at her, his face drawn and solemn in their unspeaking exchange. Trapped by the gravity, the reality of the entre situation and the way her heart was at war with itself. There was no escape and it was far too much far too fast, and it was far too much for her to endure any longer.

Lexie couldn’t sit and listen to anything else. She couldn’t sit and _think_ about anything else. She couldn’t sit and listen … and she wouldn’t.

She barely even noticed the mug slipping from her grasp until it collided with the floor, shattering in a perfectly ear shattering crash; breaking in to a perfect shatter, a perfect mess that was so fitting as visual representation for the entire situation … a perfect mess that she could do little else other than stare at for a moment before being rocked back into reality with everyone else around her staring at her in stunned silence.

“Shit.” She spat. The damn broke and she pathetically failed to strangle a sharp sob as she shakily pushed back from the table and out of her chair.

“Lexie … “ Natasha was the first to move, concern wrought over her features as she made to take up at her friend’s side.

“Stop…” Lexie half sobbed again and held up a hand in protest, hazarding another glance at Steve who was now hunched forward in his seat; eyes shut, jaw clenched tightly and fingers pressed to the bridge of his nose. “Just please, stop … okay? I’m _fine_. I just can’t do this right now … I just …” Her breath quickened in her chest and she felt what strength she had left speedily stream out of her body. “I just _can’t_.”

“Was it something I said?” Tony arched a brow and scanned the room in confusion.

“I need …” She struggled to force the breath that fought right back and seemingly refused to come. “I need some fucking air … I can’t … I can’t breathe in here.”

“Hey, how about we go take a breather in the courtyard? It’s warm in here, it’s getting to me too.” Natasha offered, flashing a sympathetic smile and an out that seemed less out of the blue and less dramatic. “I could use a break. I’ll come with you. We can-“

“ _No._ ” She snapped and shot down what she knew was a well intending offer. The courtyard sounded outright blissful, there was no denying that, but the thought of falling to pieces in front of Natasha, in front of any one of them for that matter, was never at the top of her list of things to do at the best of times; even less so at present, given the situation. “No, Nat … thank you. I just can-“ She choked again and lost her voice a little more. “I can’t … I’m sorry.”

“Steve …”

He raised a hand pre-emptively, stuffing down his own emptions, stuffing down

He raised a hand pre-emptively, stuffing down his own emptions, stuffing down every urge he had to immediately spring out of his own seat and instantly chase after her as she hurriedly took her leave from the group. If Lexie needed a moment to gather herself and he would give it to her … because after all, she wasn’t the only one who needed to still herself and rally. He needed a moment, he needed more than a moment and he would be no good to her if he let himself fall to pieces just the same.

“Seriously, what did I say?” Tony asked again, more hushed than he had before.

Lexie could hear their conversation continuing, echoing after her as she continued towards her exodus and what she hoped would bring blessed relief; a remedy for the knot of emotion in her soul and an analgesic for the hefty pain in the center of her chest.

“I’m not kidding, I’m in the dark here … what am I missing?

“A lot.” Rhodey did what he could to point blank end the conversation. “You missed a lot.”

“Clearly. That didn’t look like happiness.”

“Just let it go, man.”

“Again, I’m just asking. Why is everyone up my ass for asking basic questions?”

“Tony, not now. Seriously.”

Steve’s voice was the last she heard, quiet, solemn and subdued, as she slipped through the doorway and started down what seemed like a mile long corridor; a lengthy expanse at the end of which, another set of sliding doors parted with a muted hiss and she greeted her with a blast of crisp autumn air. Cool and soothing against Lexie’s face as she stood in the open she sucked in just as much as she could with every shuddery breath; still claustrophobic and anxious, still reeling, still dizzy, still overwhelmingly cold, and clammy, and nauseous as all hell … still crumbling under the weight of the shock that she had been handed on a silver platter. It wasn’t quite the cure-all she had hoped, but it helped in the tiniest of ways.

In the courtyard it was quiet. In the courtyard it was still and calm and gave her the solace enough to let the wall down and surrender to the storm. In the courtyard, she could hide, and did hide, shuffling towards a thick, strong pillar by the balcony to rest against; sinking to the ground and turning her face skyward in some sort of silent prayer, she let the first actual tears spill down her cheeks as shaky, shuddering breaths turned to thick, wet, not so quiet, choking sobs she had no hope of silencing.

Five long years and they had figured out a way to bring everyone back … to bring Bucky back, to give everyone back their former lives, to give him back to her.

Five long years and the one thing she had wanted so badly, the one thing that had consumed her mind and kept her going for _so.very.long_ … and now the day had come. Now it was upon her, she could reach out and snatch it, it was no longer just a pipe dream.

Five long years after he had been ripped away from her she still loved him with everything she was and the promise of everything she once had restored swelled her heart six sizes too large for her chest and turned knots in her stomach in the best way possible; she was sure of it, even layered with all the shock and all the conflict that it stirred up and left to tear clean through her.

Five long years later and she still loved Bucky with everything she had.

… and now, five very long years later, Lexie so very unfortunately loved Steve in even more unfortunately, the exact same way.

Steve, her constant, her anchor, the rock on which she had broken herself when Bucky died … the one person she never imagined she would fall in love with so entirely … and the one person with whom she wasn’t able to avoid doing just that.

Five long years and they had the chance to make everything right again. Now, at the end of everything when she had made a perfect complicated mess out of everything.

Now … when at the end of it all, one way or another, someone was going to get hurt.

… and it was going to break her heart to have to be the cause of it.

With a heavy heart, she had to face it, she had to read the writing on the wall and come to terms with an impossible situation and an even more impossible decision.

It had been a long, _long_ road in getting to this point and now it seemed that Lexie was at the end of it, in one way or another … and now, at the end of it, she had almost forgotten how it all began … way back when, when things were simple.

… or as simple as they could be … for someone like her.


	2. Chapter One: First Impressions - Part One

_ Chapter One: First Impressions – Part One _

There was something about the view from very tall buildings that Lexie Lockhart found captivating and she could never really quite put her finger on what it was.

Maybe it was the way that from the extraordinary height of very tall buildings made the world around her, and everyone in it, seemed so tiny; so distant and so insignificant that she could disconnect in a way that seemed otherwise just this side of impossible. She could step outside herself and not think about anything or anyone for a change. She could just sit back and observe life as it went on around her; she could just be, and she could just relax. Or maybe it wasn’t that at all. Maybe, in fact, it was the complete opposite and it was because it gave her the distance _to_ think about anything and everything she needed to or wanted to … without being pulled in seventeen different directions on account of everyone’s ongoing petty life struggles, self-involved conversation, and never-ending drama.

Maybe it was either of the above or maybe it was for 10,000 other reasons Lexie didn’t have the mind to suss out or even put into words, it didn’t matter. When it came down to it, it was the quiet of the whole experience she valued the most; that she loved the most. It was the quiet that kept her so enthralled, that strange sort of quiet that made a room feel like a vacuum but yet wasn’t quite dead silence; all the sounds and all the bustle from wherever the fuck or whatever the fuck still present, still there and still audible … but just barely, like life was being operated by remote control and someone had cranked the volume way down to the last notch just above mute just for background noise; just enough to serve as a gentle reminder that one would have to jump right back headlong into life at level eleven at some point or another. That strange kind of quiet that dulled the sense and made it hard to feel anything other than at ease … that strange kind of quiet she chased relentlessly and only very seldom ever managed to lock tight in her grasp.

There was something about the view from very tall buildings that Lexie found captivating and she could never really quite put her finger on it … but it made her feel calm and still. There was something about the view from very tall buildings that made her feel _safe_.

… an odd thing really, considering her current surroundings, which did nothing at all to inspire any sort of guaranteed safety at all … not really anyway.

Stood pensively in front of floor to ceiling windows in a ridiculously large office inside the ridiculously tall building that comprised S.H.I.E.L.D headquarters, Lexie surveyed the bustle of the ground floor below and the city that lay just beyond for the 100th time since she arrived. She stood in silent observance, moreover, contemplating for the 100th time that she really had no idea why she was there; that she had even less idea why she had even come.

All she knew was that it had been two weeks. Two weeks since a rather “gracious” invitation had been extended to her to attend a meeting the subject of which she was not yet privy to. Two weeks since Nick Fury had sent a tandem of well-dressed flunkies to request her audience and to their credit, they had been low key for the first few days. But as things of said nature usually went, especially when large and covert intelligence agencies were invoved, when she had not so politely brushed them off, it did little else but convince said well-dressed lackies to put the heat on her full force. After all, a polite request for her presence wasn’t exactly just that … this hadn’t been a request, it had been a demand.

This hadn’t been a request, no. This had been a very thinly veiled, very cordial order and those who delivered would no longer accept rebuking. Two weeks, on the daily she had seen them in some manner or other … at her favorite coffee shop, following her down grocery store aisles in the middle of the night … when she actually had time to attend to her most basic needs. She had seen them outside of her building, before and after her morning run, in their shiny black car lying in wait; there at the ready for her to approach and take the bait. For two weeks she’d a tail she couldn’t shake no matter what she did. They were everywhere she was at random intervals of the day … and when they just so happened to darken her doorstep on her professional stomping ground, when they had no other option open to them _but_ to show up on the regular at her work, Lexie had no other option but to give in and obey.

The risk was too great, she couldn’t chance a proverbial foot being driven into a hornet’s nest that would swarm and overrun her life and anyone she just so happened to have grown rather fond of. She couldn’t chance that the things she had buried so deep in the past would be resurrected for no other reason than to open a can of worms and stir up a world of trouble … and as long as the heat was on her, and the more attention they continued to draw towards themselves and Lexie alike, the greater the chance of said shit storm becoming a definite screaming actuality.

There was nothing more she could do now other than play the game and comply, as much as she didn’t want to and as much as she hated to. She had no choice now but to not rock the boat. She had to at least try and work out what exactly the urgency was and to find out why exactly a lowly bartender who worked the most dreadfully boring day shift in a less than thriving and wholly shitty dive bar warranted the kind of attention she was receiving.

Two weeks since two government lackies had begun to extend an invitation for a meeting they were not authorized to disclose the meaning behind … or even so much as hint at just why Director Nick Fury so wished to have just a few minutes of her time … that would have been far, _far_ too easy.

Whatever the reason, Lexie was willing to bet her life it was about to lead to no good.

This had to die now.

This had to be something she could put behind her now too, just as she had already put so many things behind her … or had tried to anyway. Maybe if she tried hard enough, she could fool herself int believing she had no idea why she was there. But maybe, just maybe, she knew exactly what was up and why there was currently a solid, twisting knot rooting deep in her stomach.

“It really is something, isn’t it? The view.” Without warning, and really more silently than she would have expected him to be, Fury appeared from nowhere at Lexie’s side to admire alongside with her and rip her out of her introspection.

“It is.” She agreed, taking a glance at her impromptu companion before returning her gaze out the window. “It’s gorgeous, a little jealous actually. It’s grotesquely peaceful up here … I can dig it.”

Lexie hadn’t really known what she was expecting of Fury, but he looked like he had just stepped out of some action movie; the way he was clothed completely in black, topped off with a badass old school eye patch. It was really quite fitting, of course, and she couldn’t decide if it was a good omen or bad that he looked the way he did. She couldn’t decide if it was accidental or if it was completely by design, but whatever the case may be, it was all together a little intimidating and maybe even a little foreboding.

“One of the best spots in the city, I think.” He continued. “I guess you could call it one of the perks of the job. One of the very few joys in my otherwise long and busy day. Everything that gets thrown at me whether I like it or not, this kind of makes it all worth it … I think.”

Lexie chuckled and cracked a half smile. “Well, I can’t say I can relate. I’ve never really had an office job.”

“No, I guess not. You’ve never been a corporate sorta girl.”

“I’m sorry?” She arched a brow, taking slight exception to a rather peculiar thing to say upon first blush.

"Oh, nothing.” Fury pulled his best attempt at a good-natured smile and a reassuring chuckle of his own as he brushed her suspicion aside and waved off his own comment; pointed as it was. “I shouldn’t make assumptions … you just don’t really read the type.”

"Fair enough.”

A momentary silence, a rather stiff and heavy air hung between them as each tried to get a better impression of the other.

“I can’t tell you how pleased I am you finally agreed to meet with me, Ms. Lockhart. You’re a very hard woman to nail down.”

“What can I say? I guess I’m just that busy.” Lexie sighed and rolled her eyes inwardly at being drawn into a forced game of false pleasantries.

“Now, do I call you Alexandra? Or do you prefer Alex? Maybe you’re a Sandy.”

“I’m a Lexie, actually … but you knew that already, didn’t you?”

Once again, she couldn’t tell if Fury was indulging in small talk and niceties by accident or if it was entirely purposeful to both put her nerves on end and set her more relaxed at the same time … but it certainly felt like some sort of sizing up; some sort of game to gauge her reactions right off the bat.

“You’ve got me there.” He flashed her another smile and relented. “Please … sit.”

Tentatively she complied and slid into an oversized chair tucked into an oversized desk as Fury took his own across from her.

“You’ll have to forgive me if I forget my manners. I’m sure you didn’t agree to all this trouble of coming all the way out here just for a bit of banter.”

"Not exactly."

"Well, I’ll try not to make this more painful than it has to be. I'm sorry I couldn't come to you…it's a very _interesting_ time around here…lots of irons in lots of fires…I'm afraid I’m spread a bit thin."

“It’s fine. Time is … time’s the one thing I have more than enough of … I guess you could say.”

“All the same, I’m sure you’d like it if I got to the point.” Another somewhat cheeky smirk passed over Fury’s face as he pressed onward. “I’m sure you have a lot of questions.”

“Maybe a couple.” Lexie lied, still painting her best attempt at a perfect poker face.

"And maybe a couple more after that?”

"…Could be."

"Well …" He leaned back in his chair and folded his hands in front of himself. "All in good time. I promise you I’ll do my best to wrap them all in a comprehensive package for you by the time we’re through. But first, I’d like to hear what you’ve heard about us … tell me what you know about S.H.I.E.L.D.”

Lexie was forced a pause.

She hadn’t at all expected that particular question and now she had to make sure she tread lightly. Saying nothing at all would have been a dead give-away. It would read suspiciously like she was skirting around something and like she had something to hide. That, of course, would only invite more questions that probed even deeper. On the flip side of things, saying too much meant she knew far more than she, a supposed everyday average unassuming civilian, knew far more than she was supposed to … which would undoubtedly have the same effect and likely in a much more intensive and invasive fashion.

It was a fine balance and a difficult area to decipher just what exactly what sort of middle ground would get her by and get her on her way.

Unless living under a rock, everyone knew about S.H.I.E.L.D; that much was undeniable. Everyone knew about S.H.I.E.L.D and everyone knew about the so aptly titled enhanced humans the organization had such a penchant for working with. Everyone knew _something_ about what it was all about and what was going on. Generalized information for a general public. Night and day between actual knowledge and the measly scraps thrown to the masses to placate them; to scratch the surface and let them in on just enough. What the general public didn't know, couldn't hurt them after all. What the general public didn't know kept them calm and collected and maybe even complacent.

Ignorance was bliss after all.

What the general public didn't know couldn't hurt them. What the general public didn't know would keep them up at night and incite a good old-fashioned bout of mass hysteria. There were too many like covert organizations, too many people, too many threats both on home soil and on an intergalactic level as well just to up the ante even more. So many people with so many agendas and so much power. The fate of everything and everyone was in a constant flux of being managed and maintained and resting on the edge of a blade; one false move would result in utter disaster from which there would be no form of return.

What the general public didn't know couldn't hurt them.

… but Lexie wasn't the general public. What she knew _was_ in fact _far_ more than she was supposed to.

But right then and right there she had no choice but to play dumb and hope for the absolute best, while at the same time dreading the sinking reality of something much worse.

“About as much as anyone else really.” She sighed. “I mean, you guys do cool shit and get the bad guys … something like that, I guess.”

"Do cool shit and get the bad guys. I might have to steal that from you. Straight, to the point … I like it.”

"It’s kinda the best I’ve got. I didn’t know this was gonna be a pop quiz, I would have studied. Listen …” Lexie did her best to try and get the ball rolling; to get to the crux of the conversation and get the show on the road so she could promptly extricate herself from the situation as soon as possible. “Why _exactly_ am I here, Mr. Fury? Pardon my French, but I don’t know what fuck is going on. I’m not trying to be rude, but I’m not sure why you’re trying to talk me to death, and I have about a hundred other places I’d really rather be soooooo …”

"You got some snap to you…I like that too."

"Snap.” She chortled.” I know. It’s not quite what my mother would call it, but she always warned me it’d get me in trouble … she wasn’t exactly wrong.”

“Mothers are like that … not being exactly wrong … but maybe not being exactly right either.” Fury nodded, his demeanor shifting slightly as he zeroed in a little more intently. "Tell me, do you have a good relationship with your mother?”

Lexie froze as her heart sank to her toes. She’d given him an in and she barely even realized. Without even knowing it, she’d opened the door just a crack and he had stomped his way right on in, leaving her to feel like quote a fool on account. The way she had been made to wait for what seemed like hours, the pointless small talk, the not so pointless dialogue he so easily pretended to slough off and assuage her suspicion. If she was bored, if she was confused, of she was even just a little frustrated by the entire encounter it would be all the easier to push Lexie to drop her guard. Once she dropped her guard and only once she dropped her guard, would Fury be ready to dig full force into the heart of the matter. She'd played right into his hands the entire time … and now she was in a strangle hold with little chance of prying herself free.

It was a brilliant move, really. She should have expected nothing less.

“Sure. About as good as any.” She lied through her teeth, full well knowing she was beaten but not willing to give an inch until she absolutely was forced to.

"Good, good. That's good to hear… you speak often?"

"Not so much. We’re both very busy … life and such.”

"I see." Another pregnant pause flooded the room, tension so thick it was flat out oppressive. "So, it's been a while?"

"You could say that.”

"That's unfortunate. That’s a very important relationship to maintain … no room for resentment … leads to nasty things. I’m glad it’s just a matter of conflicting schedules. But I have to ask … are you really gonna tell me it’s just that?" Fury leaned forward and pulled open drawer in the desk and slipped out a rather weighty looking manila folder. "I mean, it wouldn’t have anything to do with _this_ … would it?”

He tossed the folder to land squarely in front of her and there was little else Lexie could do but stare vacantly directly at it, mind racing a thousand miles a second with nothing she could do to stop it.

Her entire life, she presumed, classified, organized and stacked neatly within the confines of a bland beige casing. Everything she had hidden away and stuffed down to try and live some sort of life that was normal and respectable for a change. Everything she had hidden away, risen above and kept from everyone around her for so very long come storming to the forefront and laid at her feet so effortlessly, so matter of factly, so plainly demanding an address that she didn't want to give.

She was fucked.


	3. Chapter Two: First Impressions - Part Two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (A/N: Sooooo, I had planned on this little meeting being wrapped up in this chapter and that would have caught me up with what I had written previously, so we could get on with the show, but it didn’t quite happen that way. It ended up being WAY too long for all one chapter so all I can say is be patient…there’s just a little bit more of this little initiating incident, and we’ll be on our way. Also, I’m clearly crossing over Marvel universes and characters for my girl’s little subplot that’s going to carry through. For that I am taking liberties all round with timeline and other things, just fair warning, I know it goes without saying because we all muck around to suit our needs. For the main plot that follows the Avengers movies, though … we’re sticking pretty close to the OG timeline, maybe a few tweaks here and there right off the bat but I’ll be going pretty close. Not sure what else there is to say other than, I hope the lengths haven’t been too painful to read…in future I will try as best I can to hack the length down to a more reasonable level … it’s a constant struggle. Thank you for your collective show of support. Updates after this will probably be once a week or so … busy season busy week so, keep your eyeballs peeled )

_ Chapter Two: First Impressions – Part Two _

__

“Go on and take a peek if you want. I won’t bite ya … I don’t think anyway. But I guess maybe you do.”

Lexie huffed and shot daggers at Fury and his petty taunting … his petty dare.

He couldn’t have given two shits less if she actually looked at the file or not, she knew that for certain. He probably knew every last line on every last page that was housed in the folder and he knew all too well she did too. She didn’t need reminding of her past and all the misdeeds she thought she had put in her rear-view for good. There was nothing spilled in ink in twelve-point font on a stack of crisp snow white 20-pound bond that she didn’t already know about herself and that she didn’t revisit in her very worst nightmares every now and then … at least, she hoped there wasn’t.

Fury didn’t care if Lexie looked through the stack of well collated intelligence or not and she knew that … any idiot would have been able to figure it out. What he _did_ care about, however, was the fact that she wouldn’t look; the fact that she didn’t want to look and the fact that she would outright refuse if pressed on the matter. What he _did_ care about was the fact that the last thing she wanted to do was to confront even a scrap, the tiniest little bit, of any of the information he had laid out in front of her in a neat and tidy package; a neat and tidy package probably color coded, perfectly paperclipped and squared away like he assumed he had _her_ squared away.

Fury didn’t care if she looked through the file, not at all, not one bit, not in the slightest.

What he cared about was the fact that she would much rather avoid it. That she would much rather run from it or pretend it didn’t exist … like it was some bad fever dream, or something concocted in the grip of some chemically induced haze.

That was his power move.

Clearly.

That was what gave him the upper hand. As long as he knew everything there was to know about her and as long as he had it so readily at his disposal to do with whatever he saw fit, he had the high ground. He had Lexie bound and had her held in check … and she hated every second of it.

“See, you tell me that you have a good relationship with your mother and that’s fine … but you and I both know that’s a bald-faced lie. You and I know _precisely_ what’s in that file and you and I both know that it’s some _nasty_ shit all round.” He continued, lowering his voice a little; trying to strike a note of sympathy, trying to get on her level so as to get something, anything, out of her. “I don’t think you’d piss on her if she were on fire and I can’t say I blame you one little bit.”

Lexie didn’t respond.

Straight backed and tight lipped in her chair in her silence, Lexie didn’t have the first clue of what to say or what to do in order to even begin to address the situation.

“Why don’t you refresh my memory, how long ago? How many years ago was it that she sent you away? Sold you off to the Weapon Plus Program … I should say.”

“You wanna know so bad, I’m sure you know how to use a calculator.” She muttered flatly under her breath; doing her best to restrain the irritation, among other things, growing in her gut.

“I know it’s a touchy subject … I hope I’m not hitting any nerves.”

Lies.

“You’re not.”

Lies returned.

“I’m just … doing my job.”

“Okay.”

They shared a tense and disingenuous smile, each knowing exactly how the game they were entrenched in was played and each trying to formulate two or three moves in advance like some impromptu, unconventional, high stakes game of chess; the spoils of which were yet to be determined … some enigmatic grand prize, Lexie wasn’t even sure was worth it.

That strange sort of silence she had so previously enjoyed had crept back into the room, only to bring no comfort with it this time. It hung like a wet blanket, thick and heavy in the air; imposing, oppressive and depriving the room of even the most muted sound and of any sign of life outside of the office … save for the obnoxious ticking of some unseen desk clock ticking incessantly; echoing loud as thunder off of the four cold, hard, empty office walls around her that may as well have been a prison cell.

… fucking S.H.I.E.L.D. All the technology in the world at their fingertips and they couldn’t make a fucking desk clock that didn’t serve as an irritating countdown to impending demise.

“1983,” Fury continued, pointedly digging at the edges of a wound that, after all this time, had yet to fully heal. “You were what? Fourteen? Fifteen?”

“Six-“ Lexie’s voice faltered slightly, and she caught herself quickly, before she gave herself away. “Sixteen.”

She bit back the lump in her throat and shifted her eyes towards the floor as she blinked away the sharp prick of heat that surged at the corners. She hated that there was a shred of something left in her that could not help but flinch at the mention of it; the greatest betrayal of her life … the greatest trauma and the horrendous events that were to follow. She hated all of it, every aspect … almost as much as she hated being forced to relive it, forced to dredge it up from the depths bit by excruciating bit.

She would have called it torture … if she didn’t already know better.

“Sixteen …” He shook his head and whistled long and low to himself. “ _Sixteen_ years old and she sold you off to Weapon Plus … Weapon X, more specifically … right?”

“Weapon. _fucking_.X … ” Lexie tried to force some sort of detached smile to feign indifference, but it didn’t read anything of the sort. “Yeah.”

“They tell her they could cure you? They tell you they could take your _gift away_ and make you a normal kid again?”

“Don’t know. Don’t care … neither did she.’ She pulled at her sleeves and picked at any and every stray thread she could find as though it would help her pull out and cast away every shred of anxiety and the resentment rooted deep in her heart … or what was left of it. “She wanted me gone and she made a little money at it … good enough for her.”

“I’m sorry to hear that. I know how awful that must have been.”

“Doubt it.” She really had no mind for trite platitudes or false sympathies at this point. She had heard it all before. “ _Awful_ wouldn’t be your first choice of words if you did.”

“I won’t disagree … You have a point.”

“Do you?”

“Wouldn’t have brought you here if I didn’t.” Fury assured her, raising a hand a little defensively; full well knowing she was probably close to her limit and probably close to the edge. He’d need to find a way to talk her back down somehow if he was going to succeed. Just _how_ he would manage to do so, given the subject, was yet to be determined. “I do have a point. It’s a bit involved though … a little complicated … and I guess, to be honest, whatever comes next depends entirely on you, Ms. Lockhart.”

“I don’t understand.”

“You’re here because, I have to tell you I’ve been over everything in this file at least ten times and I find it all very interesting. I find _you_ very interesting.” He leaned in a little closer, halving the distance to drive home his words even more solidly. “You weren’t wrong earlier when I asked you what you knew about S.H.I.E.L.D … hit the nail on the head even. We _do_ do cool shit and we _do_ get the bad guys most of the time. You would know … you’ve worked with some of them and worked _for_ some of them … isn’t that right?”

“Once upon a time … in a very different life.”

“In a very different life. So, you don’t consider yourself a bad guy then?”

“No.” Lexie tensed a little and shifted in her seat uncomfortably. “Not anymore.”

“Good. Neither do I, so you can relax … that’s not why you’re here.”

“Sure.”

It wasn’t that she remained unconvinced that Fury had something up his sleeve; that there was some plot twist to be had that was going to swing around and bite her in the ass, but Lexie had learned long ago that skepticism was something she didn’t have the luxury of abandoning just on a whim and someone else’s say so. She had learned long ago that most people would tell her exactly what she wanted to hear only to stab her right through the back as soon as it was turned.

“Observation is what we do here. Constant vigilance. It helps us get to know people before we get to _know_ them. It helps _me_ get to know people like yourself, who we’ve been getting to know for a very long time.” He continued, his tone shifting just a little more serious and holding her solid in a scrutinizing stare; analyzing every subtle reaction he could gleam. “S.H.I.E.L.D has done a lot of good, protected people and saved a lot of lives over the years … but we can’t save everyone, no matter how much we may want to. A lot have slipped through the cracks, I’ll be the first to admit that … sometimes it can’t be helped, sometimes even we mishandle things. Point is we’ve come to hold a whole lotta information about a whole lotta people and in that pile of information about that pile of people, sometimes someone stands out … gets our attention … seems like the type we should probably keep our eye on.”

“Guess that means me.” Lexie smirked to herself, unable to deny the strangest faintest streak of pride course through her.

Fury flashed her an affirmative smile and gave her a nod and pushed the folder towards her again, taking note at the way she _still_ refused to so much as let her eyes flip towards it … even for a second.

“Weapon X made you a lab rat and trained you to be lap dog for almost two years. Like you said, I can only try and imagine what that was like and I’d still wouldn’t have any idea … but you got out … somehow. Dropped straight off the face of the earth for three damn years. An 18-year-old girl who never lived on her own, getting her first steps of freedom after …” He paused a moment and cocked his head to the side, appreciating just what sort of extremes and what kind of situation she had endured. “ … all of that. No one to lean on and no resources of your own. That’s not easy. I’m impressed.”

“It’s a little more involved than that, actually.” She clenched a fist under the desk, away from his prying eyes, pressing bright red crescent moons into her palms to keep herself in check.

“I don’t doubt it … don’t blame you for losing your way not long after that.”

Her face fell a little. They had made it thus far without the less than honorable things she had done and the less than desirable choices she had made just in order to keep alive. It was foolish to think she’d make her way out of the meeting having not had Fury lay it out in the open, drag it back from the dead and bring it to light … but she had hoped. She wasn’t proud of it, of course, she’d done do much, seen so much and in general been a part of so many things she was ashamed of … so many things she knew were morally wrong at the very least and even worse than that when it came down to it. But it was as he said … she was alone, she had no one and nothing to have her back, nothing to keep her safe and nothing to keep her afloat except for a very unique and special set of abilities and the training to use them in a way that made her _very_ marketable to the exact wrong kind of people.

She did what she had to to be able to get by … to be able to keep safe, to be _sure_ she’d be able to keep safe. She did what she had to get by, and she did what she had to to make damn sure she could never be used and abused … to make damn sure she would never be anyone else’s pawn ever again.

It wasn’t honorable, it wasn’t right and most of what she had done would have had her locked away in some super max cell somewhere never to breathe free air again. They would straight up lock her up and throw away, there was no mistake of that. But the past was the past, and there was nothing she could do about it now. Too many nights she had already wasted sleepless and guilt riddled, haunted by the memories of everyone and everything she had laid to ruin and while it was impossible to ever really make peace with what she had done and what she had seen and what she had been involved with, Lexie had done what she could to move on; to let the past die and put it six feet under … that didn’t mean a casual reminder didn’t sting … it didn’t mean that it didn’t bring it all back as fresh and as raw as when it happened . 

“20 years is a long time to be in the life. 20 years is a long time to be in _any_ life … I’d be the first to tell.”

“I’m sure you would.”

“But you got out again, simple as that … as far as I can tell.”

Fury narrowed his one unshielded eye and the wheels in his head began turning as he tried to fit the puzzle pieces together right there in front of her; seemingly without needing any help from Lexie herself at all. Another round about sort of game that she was at the mercy of, this time to what end she had no idea.

“20 years in the life, a hired gun … an assassin … doing what else it is that you do _so.well_. … that strikes me a bit odd to tell you the truth. Once they get in, ain’t many people I know that ever really wanna get out … easy money, so to speak. The living’s too good … way more perks than I’ll ever get.”

“Guess I never really cared about all that. It was just—”

“A means to an end.” He finished her thought for her. “I get it … as much as I can, believe me … I do. You went deep too, once you tapped out … deeper than you had to seems to me.”

“Obviously not deep enough.”

“S.H.I.E.L.D has unlimited resources, Ms. Lockhart. I told you, we’ve been invested for a very long time. We were always gonna find you … it was really just a matter of when.” He reached across the desk and pulled free a small stack of the file towards himself. “I can’t help but ask myself why, though. Why, after all that time, would you go off the grid and why would you stay so deep, only pop back up and take some crummy ass job slinging cheap beer for biker gangs and over the hill wanna be bigshots who think some pretty little thing is gonna show them a good time just for giving her a mediocre tip. I’m sure you’ve made plenty of contacts along the way … I’m sure we’ve got files on a lot of them too … but maybe, just maybe, you went deep, and you stayed deep for a reason.”

Lexie’s heart raced as he thumbed through the pages, digging deeper into something he had tipped towards himself on purpose so that she couldn’t see.

“Maybe I was just tired.”

“Maybe … but maybe not. I like to think you had a call of conscience … woke up and realized just what exactly you were doing … realized that it was only gonna end in bad news for you … maybe for everyone. But that’s not exactly it either … is it, _Lexie_?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Don’t you? I can play this game all day. I can’t help you if you won’t help yourself.”

“I _don’t_ know what you’re talking about.” She repeated herself a little more firmly, a little more abruptly as she pressed her nails into her hand again, this time unwittingly with enough force to break the skin.

“Oh, it’s not that I don’t want to believe you. Might even be easier that way, maybe for both of us … but honey, I think you know _exactly_ what I’m talking about.”

She didn’t budge an inch and tried to call Fury’s bluff as he wrapped his fingertips around a smaller stack, three or four eight by ten glossies pages; surveillance photos courtesy of those oh so gracious well-dressed lackies that had been playing tail for the past two weeks, or maybe even longer. With an all-knowing self-satisfied look, he plopped them on the desktop in front of her and waited for the penny to drop.

“Do me a favor and take a look at those, tell me what you see.”

Begrudgingly, Lexie obliged him; full well expecting his request to be a fruitless pursuit and some random pointless thread he planned to tug on to talk her in circles yet again with no real culmination and no real conclusion to the conversation that didn’t make much sense at all. She let her eyes rove over each black and white, scanning the somewhat grainy photos for anything of import other than herself; the target of some weird ass investigation with no merit and with no purpose other than to annoy her the death for the purpose of tying up loose ends and closing a file.

She let her eyes roam over a handful of photos of herself out in the city during the most mundane parts of her day and she was about to fall back and rest easy in her seat; she was about to tell him again she didn’t know what he was getting at and that he was out of his tree … and then it clicked … then she saw it … then she saw _him_ and the smug smirk that toyed at the corners of her lips fell so something entirely different.

Her heart slipped to her toes when she did. Barely able to get a handle on panicked thoughts as she tried to fight through and run a million different ways it could have been a trick, some half assed Photoshop effort by which to coerce her into something she might not otherwise be willing to do something she knew she shouldn’t; some old photos freshened up and reprinted to trick her into giving something up, saying something that would blow what was left of her world to pieces.

… but she couldn’t.

Nothing fit together and there wasn’t any way that it could have been a scare tactic or a hoax. It was real. _He_ was real. Alive in screaming color, so to speak, in every photo Fury presented her with. The same smarmy face she could have picked out of a line up at the drop of a hat, same cold eyes with the same goddamn piercing stare that was seared straight into her brain. He was there, brazen and bold, in broad daylight following her … stalking her from only really a few feet behind, not even making an attempt to disguise himself, because why would he need to?

He was right there, clear as day … her absolute worst nightmare, taunting her even in those harmless black and white photos and even that very sight of him was enough for her to have him right back in her head again. His smug, sardonic voice whispering every toxic pet name he had ever called her and that venomous smile sending a chill up her spine and making her blood run cold.

He had found her.

He had found her and in one solid blow, her entire world was crashing down around her.

“Recognize anyone?”

“Where did you get these? When …” Her head swam and the room began to spin around her; if she hadn’t already been sitting, Lexie was quite confident she would have flat fainted dead away. “When were they taken?”

“Francis Freeman … Ajax … that’s what he calls himself, right?” He skirted around her questions, bringing everything home in that tidy little package he had promised her; ready now to lay it at her feet. “That’s what _you_ remember him as anyway … you _do_ remember him … don’t you?”


	4. Chapter Three: Fight or Flight - Part One

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ooops, I did it again! I know I promised the last was the last super long one, but I had to get through this with one last push and well … it ended up being about 1,000 words longer than I planned … the struggle is real, I swear. But it really will be the last hefty read for a bit, I hope. I feel like it’s worth it and I hope you do too. And look, at the very end a wild Steve appears … aww… Steve … I’m so crushingly in love with Steve it’s like a cruel joke he’s not actually real. But anyways, I digress. I tried something a little crafty with this one to make it a little less boring and hopefully it worked. I hope it nothing about the before or after feels too rushed, clunky or awkward. I feel okay about it but I’d love any feedback you have. Anything in this chapter (and elsewhere from now on) in italics should be read as a flashback or a memory. With that, on with the show. I have to get to bed, but I just wanna say again, thank you for all your continued support!! I am looking forward this weekend to reading what you guys have written when I have a spare second. I feel like I’ve been rude in not doing so, but know that it has been my intention, I’ve just been busy.)

**__ **

_ Chapter Three: Fight or Flight – Part One _

**__ **

Lexie ripped through her apartment, full-fledged panic setting in once the door behind her was deadbolted and chained; as if it _really_ would have mattered either way when it came right down to it. If _he_ wanted in, he was getting in, a flimsy chain wouldn’t stop him … even a top-of-the-line secondary lock wasn’t going to stand much of a chance. It was little comfort to be closed inside but it was comfort enough for the time being. Blinds drawn; light dampened by the grip of dusk that had started to take hold outside the four walls that she put so much blind faith in to keep her safe at least for a few hours while she got her shit together … before she got the hell out of dodge … _if_ she managed to get the hell out of dodge.

She’d let herself get too comfortable after all. Too lax, too woefully underprepared and too horrifically naïve to even have put together an escape plan for in case … in her most recent days, anyway. She was tired of coming up with escape plans and she was tired of looking over her shoulder; living in some kind of purgatory in which anything other than constantly looking over her shoulder and living life ready to up and leave at a moment’s notice was the only “life” she would ever be permitted to allow herself. She was tired of living like life was about to go sideways at any minute. Five years of never really buying furniture from thrift shops and secondhand stores and shitty Craig’s List adds so she didn’t have to worry about writing off the expense of something nice, something pretty, something that made any lodging she found her way into a home and not just a place to rest her eyes. Five years of never putting down roots, constantly reminding herself to keep everyone she met at arm’s length. Five years of month-to-month shit hole rentals. Five years of never having more than half a dozen outfits and a small collection of personal things … nothing that couldn’t fit in a duffle bag to be packed in five minutes. Five years of having some stupid ass cheap backpack stuffed as full as she could get it and hidden under her floorboards for if and when she didn’t even have five minutes. Five years of living like the fugitive she was, in more than just the clear cut and dry, and she’d stupidly given herself the luxury of believing it was all behind her.

Five years and she had gotten too comfortable, too lax, too naively optimistic … and now he had found her, and everything was reset right back to square one. The cycle was repeating and now she wasn’t even remotely prepared.

He had found her, and everything had gone to shit.

She ripped through her apartment in a careless frenzy, damn near pulling cupboard doors out of walls and drawers out of their tracks; rummaging through closets and storage nooks leaving whirlwind of fall out in her wake looking for something, anything by which to pack light and fly under the radar with a few days provisions and a handful of precious belongings; anything by which she could take what she needed and leave the rest so as to keep herself alive long enough to find a new life … only to come up with nothing.

… not that she could even get it together enough to figure out what she would need to take with her and why. She was fried, running on instinct and adrenaline and it wasn’t until she had ransacked every room in her once beloved home without even making a small stack on the counter that she realized she wasn’t operating with a clear head. It wasn’t until her legs gave out and she let herself slide to the cold tile floor of the bathroom, it wasn’t until she fell to pieces and let the flood gates open and let the tears rush in that she realized that muscle memory would only get her so far. Operating in some sort of blind repetition, reliving a familiar scene she had had the misfortune of playing out more than once before was only going to get her killed, and rather swiftly at that.

He had found her. She had no idea what she was doing … not anymore.

She didn’t even really know or remember how she’d managed to make her way home after fleeing that incredibly tall building and that meeting that had blown her world to pieces.

All she knew was he had found her, and with every move Fury’s words were still ringing in her ears.

He had found her … and that was enough.

 _“_ ** _When_** _were they taken??!” Lexie’s voice rose inadvertently, bouncing off the empty walls around her as her panic hit a fever pitch._

 _“I_ ** _don’t_** _know … I_ ** _can’t_ **_tell you.” Fury matched her edge, not so much out of similar irritation as much as a need to break through and bring her back down. “They’re more recent then you’d like to believe … I can guarantee you that.”_

_“Shit … shit!” She fought to keep herself in check and tried to force herself to ignore the surge of emotion so as to think clearly … only to find it rather pointless at no mistake. “I have to go … I-I-I have to … I have to leave.”_

_“And you’re free to … but if you think you’re safer out there … ”_

_“You don’t understand.”_

_“I_ _do_ _understand. You forget where you are if you don’t think I know every goddamn thing there is to know about this sadistic asshole. What he did … what he’s_ _going_ _to do. Where is it exactly you think you’re going of you leave now? Baltimore? New York? Maybe Boston? I know you think you can throw him off your trail if you’re quick enough … if you’re smart enough … and maybe you can. You’re resourceful … I’m sure you can find a way to make it work again. Maybe you can get your life back, hide out and keep him at bay for another five, seven, ten years if your lucky. But how lucky do you think you really are and what’s gonna happen to you if that luck runs out …_ _when_ _that luck runs out?”_

_“I-I-I don’t know … I-I—”_

_“Even I know about that cabin you’ve got tucked away all the way out there in the Catskills … your father’s, right?” He flipped another photo put of her file, this one an aerial of a small plot of land with a small log home and a couple of out buildings surrounded by thick brush and towering trees … the perfect picturesque summer vacation … or a frenzied get away for when the shit hit the fan. “Nice place, by the way … quaint.”_

_Slack jawed and wide eyed, Lexie was struck dumb, unable think and unable to formulate any sort of worthy response whatsoever._

_“I told you … we’ve been getting to know you for a very,_ **_very_ ** _long time.” Fury continued, reaching across his desk and clapping a hand over hers momentarily. “Take a breath … slow it down if you can. I need you to hear what I have to say, and I need you to_ **_really_. _hear.it_** _**.** because you can’t afford not to.”_

_“Ok-okay … “_

_“The Weapon Plus Program does_ **_not_ ** _have a good track record with their projects … their subjects, like you. Now, I could bore you with the details of the counter measures and the things we’ve tried to do to keep things in check, maybe even shut the whole thing down but we’d be here all day and like you said, you’ve gotta go … you don’t have time … I might not either.”_

_“Mm-hmm.” She hummed and feigned some sort of chuckle that was more anxiety riddled than genuine; her mind still spinning a million miles a minute._

_“I don’t know how much you know, and I don’t know if it comes as a shock or not, but you are one of very few outcomes that’s been successful … beyond measure at that.”_

_“I didn’t ask to be … I didn’t want anything to happen to … I can’t help that. It’s not my fault.”_

_“I know, I know.” Fury held up his hands, trying again to set her at ease a little and make sure she stayed on the same path. “But that doesn’t change it … nothing can change that fact … nothing can undo it or take it away. Enhanced strength, enhanced agility and reflexes, enhanced regeneration … you’re not the first and you won’t be the last goddamn super-soldier, Lexie. But you throw in what you were born with … what that serum they shot you up with_ _perfected_ _in you and made ten times stronger … mimicry, telepathic melding … that extraction and transference … that makes you a damn near_ ** _perfect_** _weapon.”_

_“I don’t do that anymore … I-I haven’t trained, I haven’t practiced any of that for years.”_

_“Do you think that matters? You think they care? You think your ol’ pal_ **_Francis_ ** _gives two shits about any of that?”_

_He had a point, as disheartening and as terrifying as it was._

_“You got out … you made your way exactly how they planned you to only they didn’t get a piece of the action and you can bet they want a return on their investment. Now, ol’ Ajax here … he is either coming to kill you and take you out of the equation … or he’s coming to reclaim you. Neither of those things are gonna be pretty.”_

_“Damnit.” Lexie spat under her breath, taking a time to realize the gravity of the situation and mulling over every possible outcome, each even less desirable than the last. “ … fuck.”_

_“Fuck is right … fuck_ **_is_ ** _right. You can’t run from this anymore … not really anyway and not for very much longer. The wolf is at your door … and he is_ _not_ _gonna play nice before he rips you to pieces.”_

_“Yeah, so?” She cleared her throat and swiped at one solitary tear that managed to squeak out to betray her. “What’s that got anything to do with you? Why do you care so goddamn much?”_

_“I don’t know, to tell you the truth … maybe I’ve just got a feeling … maybe we can help each other out.” He shrugged. “I work with a very special group of very special people and I think just maybe you’d make an exceptional addition. That’s why I asked you here to talk and that’s why I’m hoping maybe you’ve listened to everything I’ve told you and everything I’m about to tell you. Maybe I’m hoping you’ll let it sink and that you’ll think about it for a little longer than five seconds before you cut off your nose to spite your face.”_

_“Why would I do that?”_

_“Because I know for damn sure your life depends on it. Because maybe, just maybe, there’s a very real chance mine might too.” The tone of the conversation shifted a little more dire and along with it the expression wrought upon Fury’s face. “Take your pick. I can’t predict the future but what I can do is tell you things are happening … things are in play and wheels are turning that I don’t know can be stopped. Now, I don’t know just what and just when … and I sure as shit don’t know how long we can stay on top of it, how long we’ll have the upper hand. You and I both know there’s much nastier people in the world than just the assholes that weaponized a sixteen-year-old girl, slapped a control collar on her, drugged her to high heaven and meant to make her a slave for the highest bidder. You might not think anything can be worse than that, but I’m telling you it_ _can_ _. I’m telling your it_ _will_ _and when it does … I’m telling you won’t like it one damn bit._ ”

_"Negative." Lexie shook her head dismissively; knee-jerking into unimpressed wit. "That's very glass half empty, Mr. Fury. Has no one ever taught you the power of positive thinking?"_

_"I'm a realist."_

_“Yeah. So am I … and as a fucking realist, **I’m** telling **you** that I’m not interested.”_

_"Not even to do some good? To be on the right side and make some amends?" He countered, pulling at threads of guilt and whatever internal demons lingered not so very dormant within her. "You sleep okay at night?"_

_“I sleep just fine.”_

_“Sure you do … for now.” A note of skepticism painted his voice. “You think that’s gonna hold up much longer?”_

_“If you think a thinly veiled threat is gonna change anything … if you think it’s gonna change my mind—"_

_“It’s not a threat … it’s a warning. Maybe even a worst-case scenario, a promise. Your homeboy setting up shop in your shadow … **that’s**_ _a threat.” With a sigh he leaned back in his chair, relenting, feigning a brief air of defeat. “But I’m not here to coerce you. I don’t wanna make you agree to anything you don’t want to … I’m just laying it all on the line … letting you know so you can do what you got to so you can save your own ass. You shoot me down and walk outta here today without a backward glance, that’s your choice. I can’t help you much if you do. I can send a security detail to keep an eye on you for a few days … maybe make sure you get outta town alright. But after that you’ll be on your own. I’m sure you can withstand what’s coming for a little while … but no one lives long enough to fly solo forever.”_

_He wasn’t wrong … Lexie begrudgingly admitted that. She would have had to have been a fool to think otherwise. There was strength in numbers, there was no questioning that, and she was very much on her own and she would very much be running scared the second she left, but that was her own business. Until proven otherwise, anything Fury glossed over with speculative warnings were little else than fear-mongering to Lexie. And fear-mongering, no matter which side it was thrown at her from, fear-mongering was little more to her than just a cheap way to gain a pawn for a much larger game. And it was a game she had been out of for so long, she didn't know if she wanted to let alone need to throw herself back into full force. She didn't know if that was a path, whether for good or otherwise, she was willing to walk down._

_… but all the same, he had a point … again._

_" I’m not a perfect weapon, believe me, I’m not. You say they made me a super-soldier; they say they made me a super-slave. I lived it … so I’m inclined to go along with the later.”_

_“That’s unfortunate.”_

_“ I’m not an asset and I don’t have anything to offer you. I told you, I don’t do that anymore so you can save what’s left of your breath. I've heard it all before."_

_"So you think."_

_"So I_ _know._ _" Lexie retorted gruffly. "I'm not some perfect soldier. I’m barely anything anymore actually, and in all honesty I probably couldn’t even fight my way blindfolded out of a paper bag at the moment. Maybe you would have been able to change my mind ten years ago, I don’t know. I didn’t ask questions then … and now I don't just jump because someone tells me to fucking jump. I’ve been bought all my goddamn life … I don’t wanna be bought anymore.”_

_“I can respect that. I **understand** that … I know how you must feel. But if I’m right, and I hope to God I’m not, all these nasty ass people … they’re in bed together and that’s not something you or I or anyone else is gonna endure if we don’t do something about it. You’re on your own … that’s not gonna work. If you’re not with them, you’re against them and if you’re against them, they’re not gonna hesitate.”_

_Lexie sighed herself and turned her gaze skyward, shaking her head in disbelief that she was being tested and being put in such a godawful spot._

_If there was textbook definition for “between a rock and a hard place” this would have been it._

_“Think about it.” Fury bid her again, this time a little more gently. “Please.”_

_She chewed her lip and bounced her leg and fought with herself three ways from Sunday. Giving in was not her strong point and even thought she knew considering his offer wasn’t actually doing so, it didn’t mean that it felt any different._

_“And if I do? What then?”_

_“I guess we’ll have to cross that bridge when we get to it.” It wasn’t a lot she had given him, but it was a start. “Just so you know, though … anything you so happen to need, I can provide.”_

_“It’s not about that.”_

_“I know … it’s just an offer.”_

_Light years of progress suddenly made in about ten seconds. For the first time since they had sat down to chat, Fury was encouraged by the way she finally allowed her gaze to drop to the folder spread wide now on his desk; staring at it intently, contemplatively as if it were the final lynch pin that pulled it all together._

_“Can you make that all go away?” She asked quietly. “If I say yes, I mean. If I accept your offer, can you give me a clean slate? Burn it, shred it, mix up some computer virus that washes all of this away so I can at least **pretend**_ _I have a normal life … that I **had** a normal life?”_

_“I’ll see what I can do. It’ll take a lot and I don’t like making promises I can’t keep … but I’ll see what I can do.”_

_Nodding to herself, an exasperated sigh passed Lexie’s lips and she relented; reminding herself that there was no one and nothing that could keep her from changing her mind and that she likely would do just that 25 times before it was all said and done._

_She relented and gave him what he wanted … she’d consider it. Not because she wanted to, not in the slightest. But everything he’d laid before her told her she would be stupid not to … everything he’d laid before her told her she **had** to … no matter how much she hated it. _

_It could very well be her best shot at making it out the other side._

_It could very well be her **only** chance to make it out the other side with something of a life left and something of a life worth looking forward to._

_“Well I guess then, Mr. Fury, you’d better get to work.”_

_“Is that a yes?” He pressed his luck and tried to get a full out commitment on the spot._

_“It’s a maybe.” She smiled softly. “I don’t like making promises I can’t keep either … but I can promise you I’ll think about it.”_

_“I’ll take it.” A wave of relief washed over him as he set to collecting everything he had spread out in front of her to tuck back in his desk under lock and key should he so have to deliver what Lexie bid him. “I can give you 48 hours … sooner would be better.”_

_“I’ll be in touch.” She pulled herself to her feet and tried to shake the heavy grip of apprehension and a fresh wave of anxiety as she made to take her leave. “In the meantime …”_

_“Stay safe out there.”_

_“Fingers crossed.”_

_Another curt smile and she turned; heels striking out stiletto notes against the floor and punctuating the silence left in her wake. The easy part was over … it was the rest that would be difficult, and Lexie more or less was counting every microsecond until she was out of his office, out of the building and left to her own devices to work everything through eight million times and fall straight to pieces if that’s what it took to get everything squared away._

_“Ms. Lockhart … “ Fury called after her one last time just to impart a few lingering words of wisdom that he hoped would click and set in her brain. “Wiping that file clean, that won’t change the past … that’s not gonna chase those demons away and keep them from tapdancing through your head at 3 A.M. … that’s all on you.”_

_"I know." She froze in her tracks just long enough to throw sad glance back over her shoulder, voice flooding with emotion pricking at the corners of her eyes. “Believe me … I know.”_

_She turned again and Hurried footsteps carried her closer to her escape. There never was a time to break, really. But she could feel it barreling down that tracks and if she didn't get out of the office, and out of the building for that matter, it would hit her like a ton of bricks and she would little more than a simpering, quivering, sobbing, weak ass mess huddled on the floor for all the world to see. She would rather have been cut from ear to ear, bleeding out for all the world to see._

_Lexie didn't see Steve loitering in the doorway, having been stood there just long enough to hear the last few minutes of a somewhat tense exchange but not quite long enough to get a strong grasp of the situation. Without even an upward glance she didn't take notice of him towering, still clad in full gear and fresh off his mission, almost directly in her path. Not that she would have cared even if she had. Maybe on another day, in a different state of mind, Lexie would have been more delicate, more graceful, more considerate on exit and would have sidestepped and breezed by him instead of not giving a shit and blind barreling through without a second thought and only the most insincere apology. Maybe on another day, she would have even allowed herself a pause to appreciate the sight of him; statuesque and perfect … like some blonde-haired blue-eyed god set straight in her path as if almost on purpose._

_Maybe on any other day, she would have avoided a straight blind collision without much as the briefest or most insincere apology tossed over her shoulder before storming down the hallway._

_Maybe any other day she would have been full of better first impressions._

_Maybe any other day, but not that day. That day she had other things she had to think about … and none of them sparked the slightest bit of enjoyment._

Lexie didn’t even really know or remember how she’d managed to make her way home after fleeing that incredibly tall building and that meeting that had blown her world to pieces.

All she knew was he had found her, and with every move Fury’s words were still ringing in her ears.

He had found her … and that was enough.

There, on the cold tile floor of the one-bedroom apartment that now felt more like a prison cell than a home … Lexie had a decision to make.


End file.
